Archive for June 2013

Times of India: Cautioning that the Uttarakhand disaster may be a warning towards “extreme weather”, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) vice-chairman M Shashidhar Reddy on Monday said detailed assessment of impact of climate change is needed. Speaking at the inauguration of South Asia Regional Consultation on Climate Change Adaptation, Reddy said: “Nothing more serious could[continue reading…]

RTCC: India’s vulnerability to extreme weather was exposed this week when floods killed at least 600 people with thousands reported missing. The monsoon arrived early in the northern state of Uttarakhand, bringing with it 375% more rain than in previous years. The sheer weight of water that hit an area known as India’s ‘holy land’[continue reading…]

Climate Himalaya: The Himalayan region consists of extremely fragile ecosystem, and source to 10 major Asian river systems, on which over 1.3 billion people rely for sustenance, water, livelihoods and prosperity. A recent flash flood on 16-17 June, affected over 50,000 people in the mountain state of Uttarakhand, while it is estimated that over 5000[continue reading…]

NDMA Drill Had Exposed Gaps in State’s Disaster Management Plan Uttarakhand government took no step to address shortcomings in three years. A mock drill organised by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in May-June 2011 in three districts of Uttarakhand had raised many crucial questions. After the drill, that was conducted in Dehradun on May[continue reading…]

This report is a synthesis of two studies that sought to understand the policy contexts for addressing climate change adaptation and key conservation issues in Nepal and Bhutan, which have many significant commonalities and differences. The purpose of this synthesis is to compare the policy contexts for mainstreaming climate change adaptation in Bhutan and Nepal,[continue reading…]

Ph.News Yahoo: Come July, students and teachers in 20 schools will get the opportunity to monitor climate change in the country using scientific instruments worth US$150,000 donated by Karuna Foundation in the United States. Schools using the instruments will serve as database for the climate change study, the first of its kind, carried out by[continue reading…]

The absence of accurate climate prediction models should not dissuade countries from choosing the best ways to adapt to a changing climate, says a new report published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. “Even when our knowledge is incomplete, we often have robust grounds for choosing best-bet adaptation actions and pathways, by[continue reading…]

Business Mirror: Residents of Jhirpu Phulpingkatt, a village nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, about 110 kilometers from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, are on red alert. As the impacts of climate change batter the towering mountains above them, these villagers on the banks of the Bhote Koshi River have started to dread the sound of[continue reading…]

Times of India: The Queen of the Hills, as Shimla was fondly called by the British, has been shortlisted for a global project to lower greenhouse gas emissions on the pattern of European cities, a municipal official said. The Shimla Municipal Corporation is one of six Indian cities selected for implementing the “Promoting low emission[continue reading…]

Dawn: Pakistan is no stranger to being plagued by multiple crises. News headlines are usually dominated by issues like terrorism, extremism and power shortage but an even more alarming danger could affect the future of Pakistan if it is not tackled on a priority basis. The dangerous threat we all know as climate change has[continue reading…]

ChinaDaily: Amid the gloomy news of the worsening impact of climate change is a bright spark: the dramatic fall in the cost of solar energy. This source of clean and renewable energy could help power the world without emitting greenhouse gases. Solar energy has traditionally been more expensive to use than carbon-intensive coal or oil.[continue reading…]

Business Standard: India is all set to launch science and technology cooperation with China in August with thrust on areas like astronomy, management of natural disasters and technology research on climate change. A key element of the cooperation could be the National Large Solar Telescope (NLST), the world’s largest such facility that India plans to[continue reading…]

Huffingtonpost: NASA’s AirSWOT Program To Measure Planet’s Water Resources, Ocean’s Impact On Climate Change. When you think about NASA, water probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But NASA knows that access to fresh water and the impacts of climate change will be two of this century’s biggest challenges. Their ongoing AirSWOT mission[continue reading…]

Global Warming: NASA scientist Roy Spencer recently posted on his Web site some startling graphs produced by John Christy, his colleague at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The graph immediately below compares the linear-trend temperature projections of 73 climate models with the linear trend of observed temperatures for the bulk tropical atmosphere during 1979-2012. The 73 models are[continue reading…]

eKantipur: Where are the Nepali farmers? I might sound like I am asking the stupidest question ever. After all, unlike in Canada where I am residing currently and where only two percent of the 33 million Canadians live and work in farms, farmers are everywhere in Nepal—tens of millions of them. To be precise, according[continue reading…]

New Indian Express: The recent announcement by climate watchers that carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere has crossed a psychologically significant barrier of 400 parts per million raised all the intended alarm bells world over. In a field which has been continually consuming a lot of public attention, and where the public are fed bits[continue reading…]

FAO: There has been a rapid uptake of the term Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) by the international community, national entities and local institutions, in the past years. However, implementing this approach is challenging, partly due to a lack of tools and experience. Climate-smart interventions are highly location-specific and knowledge-intensive. Considerable efforts are required to develop the[continue reading…]

Bhutan Observer: The day was observed coinciding with Her Majesty’s birthday from this year onwards, as a tribute to Her Majesty’s patronage of the environment sector in Bhutan. In an address at the commemoration, Her Majesty said that World Environment day is of great relevance and consequence to millions of people who understand the importance[continue reading…]

Economic Times: Unchecked global warming may increase the risk of flooding at the end of this century in 42 per cent of the Earth’s land surface, including parts of India, Southeast Asia and Africa, a new study has warned. According to a research team led by Yukiko Hirabayashi at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of[continue reading…]

The thirty-eighth sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 38) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 38), as well as the second part of the second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 2-2) is taking place at Maritim Hotel from 3-14 June[continue reading…]

ICLEI-ACCCRN Guide and Toolkit to help municipal governments in Asia build resilience to climate change. ICLEI has finalized a new guide and toolkit aimed at helping municipal governments in Asia build City Resilience Strategies to cope with the growing impacts of climate change as part of its engagement with the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience[continue reading…]

One World SA: Sustained global warming will wipe out an uncountable number of plant and animal species, says a new report based on a path-breaking study of similar climatic changes through the ice age. In a study that could show how rapid changes in climate could devastate global ecosystems, a group of British scientists have[continue reading…]

Antonio M. Claparols (Philippines): The recent news is that the 450-ppm threshold of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere will be a reality soon. Is this cause for global alarm? Yes, and it must be prevented from happening at all costs because it will raise global temperatures by 2 degrees Centigrade and lead to extreme droughts,[continue reading…]

ci:grasp performs as a climate information service and provides sound knowledge on current and projected climate stimuli, climate impacts and adaptation options at the national, sub-national and regional level. The layer system The information in ci:grasp is organized via a layer structure. Layer 1: Stimuli Provides you with information regarding selected climate stimuli, sea-level rise,[continue reading…]

eKantipur: Nepal celebrates this World Environment Day with the great responsibility of being Chair of Least Developed Countries in the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. Joint Secretary Prakash Mathema is Nepal’s representative in that distinguished platform. Recently, when asked what Nepal could do on the environment front to both make a bold international[continue reading…]

The Nations: The nation is observing another World Environment Day on Wednesday (today), but the authorities in the polluted country are taking least interest in tackling the situation. Like the previous year, events such as seminars and walks are on the cards at public and private level as a standard ritual that somehow skirts the[continue reading…]

NCCARF: Australian dryland agriculture will be affected by climate change in a number of ways. First, higher temperatures and changes to rainfall are likely to create greater variability of crop yields and livestock productivity. Second, government policies introduced to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions are likely to influence production costs and commodity prices. Third, global trade[continue reading…]

The Himalayan Times: Last week, on Friday, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in Nepal took a bold step in declaring that Climate Change has a direct bearing on Human Rights, and in moving forward the NHRC would work in Nepal within that context too. Nepal would not be the first country to accept this[continue reading…]

Chinadaily: Nepal should adopt specific measures to mitigate adverse effects of climate change and environmental degradation rather than organizing ornamental programs to mark the World Environment Day (WED), conservation experts said Tuesday. Experts also stressed on the need to revise the country’s existing environmental law to bring it at par with the contemporary provisions implemented[continue reading…]

The review – Ice-sheet mass balance and climate change, published in the journal Nature – confirms that Antarctica and Greenland are both losing ice and contributing to rising sea levels. But it found that Greenland is losing twice as much ice as Antarctica, and that Antarctic ice loss is likely to be less extreme than[continue reading…]

Energy Bangla: Ahead of the United Nations climate change meeting in Germany, Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) stresses the climate resilience needs of 500 million smallholder farms. With World Environment Day approaching next week, key negotiations within the UN’s climate change talks are to take place in Bonn.[continue reading…]

TheForeigner: Putting a label on people does not always explain the problem. If you don’t know, ask. What does the term “climate change refugee” really mean? My previous column looked at some of the current science, showing what is and is not known about people moving due to climate change. Significant potential exists for climate[continue reading…]

Dailytimes: Sindh’s environment has been ideal for date cultivation with perfect soil and warm climate. But things are changing now. At time when dates are ready to be plucked, dried, processed and sold, Upper Sindh has witnessed radical and catastrophic climate change recently, within a month. As the fruit starts dropping compelling the growers to[continue reading…]

Bernama: The construction of biogas plants in Kumrose village, Chitwan district in central plains of Nepal will make it the first village in the country to be free of fossil-fuel and become environment-friendly, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “We started with a pilot project. In the beginning 14 biogas plants were installed with donation. Once[continue reading…]

IPS: Residents of Jhirpu Phulpingkatt, a village nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, about 110 km from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, are on red alert. As the impacts of climate change batter the towering mountains above them, these villagers on the banks of the Bhote Koshi river have started to dread the sound of incoming[continue reading…]

IRIN: The seasonal influx of migrant harvesters into Nepal’s Himalaya Mountains seeking a caterpillar fungus used as a traditional medicine and believed to have aphrodisiac properties is causing environmental damage along the rural border with Tibet. When a parasitic fungus infects and kills caterpillars, the high value of the fungus drives tens of thousands of harvesters[continue reading…]

MP: The development of a strategy focusing on sustainable tourism development is under way in the countries of the Carpathian Mountains – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Consultations are planned with representatives from governments, tourism agencies and NGOs along with a series of stakeholder meetings and national consultations and 14[continue reading…]

CNN: Indications the rate of warming in oceans is greater than previously thought. In 1872 the H.M.S. Challenger, converted from a British fighting vessel to a floating laboratory, set off on what was to be the first scientific survey of life in the world’s oceans. Now scientists are using data collected during the Challenger’s four[continue reading…]

CNN: New study predicts a big jump in foliage growth in arid regions as carbon dioxide levels increase. Australian scientists have solved one piece of the climate puzzle. They have confirmed the long-debated fertilization effect. Plants build their tissues by using photosynthesis to take carbon from the air around them. So more carbon dioxide should[continue reading…]

Why Mountains are Important

Disaster in Indian Himalayas

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Climate Himalaya team is not responsible for the content taken from external websites. It is a voluntary initiative of PRAKRITI group that has registration number- 401/1998-99/11906D (10/2014-2015) with Government of Uttarakhand in India. The initiative is financially supported by PRAKRITI group.